


Where winter's shadows fare

by Catherines_Collections



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Leverage, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ace Parker, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gen, Manipulation, Memory Loss, Multi, Parker as the winter soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-08-14 18:29:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8024476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catherines_Collections/pseuds/Catherines_Collections
Summary: The asset complies.The asset is furious.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea for so long and this is actually the closest i've ever come to liking the story as a whole and not just for the few pieces. This timeline is so screwy i'm so sorry.
> 
> I own nothing, please enjoy:)!

The asset does not have a name, any belongings or memories of its own. The asset has handlers, who instruct with cruel hands, harsh words, and do as they please. The asset has missions assigned to her and years blood on her hands. The asset is a puppet in a world much too big to be controlled by such small people. 

Her handlers have a chair that wipes the mind and steals her thoughts. A chair that hurts like bullets and flame and handlers who mock her screams. She is assigned a mission after a wipe: names, locations, ages, and genders. The asset does not discriminate; the asset was not designed to.

The asset complies.

The asset is furious.

.

The asset dreams in red, dark colors and unidentifiable shapes. Silhouettes adorn in shadows and voices never close enough to hear.

She wishes she dreamt in memories.

(Once she dreamt of blank faces and laughter, drinks in hand and joy in the air. She woke with names on her lips, but they were gone after the wipe.)

She isn’t supposed to dream, but she isn’t supposed to feel anger either.

.

She knows nothing of her past - nothing that wasn’t stitched in or pulled out of her - so when the man before her with dark skin and bright eyes whispers the name Parker like a prayer, the first phrase out of her mouth, “Who the hell is Parker?” is the only logical response she knows. 

But for some reason when the man’s expression falls and something in his eyes seems to break, there is a small voice in her mind whispers it was the wrong thing to say.

She doesn’t stay around long enough to find out why.

.

It’s a routine check when she finally snaps. Too much chance and so much possibility. 

There are three guards in the room and one doctor who preps the chair for her wipe. She can tell the guards are new. Between them there are three guns and eight other weapons. 

She thinks of the man who called her Parker, the way he had stared at her like he knew her. She thinks of the dreams she wants to have, the memories she wants to keep. She thinks of the voices she wants to hear.

Parker.

It takes her seven seconds to incapacitate the doctor, and thirty between the three agents.

She takes the doctors key card and runs her hand over the pass carefully. 

Parker the voice whispers.

She escapes the building through the air ducts and without tripping any major alarms. She steals one of the agent’s jackets and covers her face with the hood.

She walks for a minute after she’s out of sight of the fortress, but after that she doesn’t stop running.

.

She ends up in a shabby bar and possibly in another state. It’s snowing outside and the bar is full of drunken middle aged men and women clambering over the tables to see the scores from the latest sports game.

She takes a seat in the furthest corner booth and allows herself a minute to close her eyes and breathe.

She feels someone slip in across from her and tenses. 

They sit in silence for nearly a minute before she opens her eyes.

“Want someone to talk to?” asks the man. He has curly brown hair and eyes that bleed pain.

She squints, attempting to get a read on the man and prepare for a fight if needed, inwardly startling when he laughs. It’s cracked and fragile with a hint of madness to it.

“Sorry,” he says, running his hands rapidly over his face, “Sorry it’s just- it’s been a while.”

She doesn’t ask what he means by that, only stands and turns to leave when she hears something that stops her in her tracks and runs her blood cold.

“What,” she starts, “did you just say?”

The man offers her a toothy but saddening grin.

“Parker.” He says knowingly, “I said Parker.”

.

She’s a thief, according to the man who claims his name is Nate, Was a thief.  
She was nearly the best thief in the world.

She was part of a team, with Nate as their moral compass and leader. They were modern day robin hoods, saving the day and the small people life had screwed over.

What he tells her is: You are the best thief

What she hears is: You were the best thief.

His voice quiets as he tells her she isn’t a killer. She thinks that’s not my skill set. It takes her merely a moment to realize that now it is.

He continues to speak and she listens.

.

Nate tells her the rest of them are outside. She pretends the thought of meeting them all doesn’t make her sick.

He walks her outside where three people await them in the frostbitten air.

The man who called her Parker stands among them, eyes tired and wrinkles where smooth skin should be, but he smiles at her a tad shy and kind. Her heart melts for a moment as she looks at him. She wants to tell him thank you. Tell him that he helped bring her back. 

But for the moment she remains unsure on everything around them and so she only nods, once again ignoring the broken look in the man’s eye. 

Her gaze wonders to the next person in the makeshift line. Beside him stands another man, eyes narrowed and concentrated solely on her. She positions herself for a fight until Nate lays a gentle hand on her shoulder and shakes his head. The other man’s jaw remains clenched though and he roughly turns his eyes away.

Lastly there’s a woman. She’s beautiful but there are tears in her eyes as she smiles at her. She sounds choked up when she speaks, as if the sobs she contains have claimed her entirely, “Welcome home, Parker.”

She takes them all in and breaths.

.

The first few weeks are fearful glances and awkward scrambling.

She knows they’re supposed to be a team, but she can’t help but feel she’s too broken to be a part of it.

.

It’s her first month free that everything hits and Sophie’s the only one in the general vicinity set to contain it.

"I think I'm dead." she pauses, "I should be dead." 

Parker turns to her, eyes empty and weighed down by the black bags beneath them. Her blonde hair is long and unkempt; she looks so tiny in her armor, helpless almost when Sophie knows she is anything but. Her face resembles a child's, but her eyes tell of war. 

"Why am I not dead?" The conviction in the other woman's voice breaks something inside of her simultaneously sending shivers up her spine, "I don't know." Sophie responds, because she doesn't.

Parker cries in her lap and Sophie holds her close petting her hair.

.

The man who first narrowed his eyes is named Eliot. The man who first spoke her name is named Alec but he mostly gets called Hardison.

They don’t touch her directly, they don’t huge on her like Sophie does and don’t grasp her arm like Nate, but every once and a while a finger will trace her arm or a leg will brush against hers and it makes it a little easier to breath.

She never directly thanks them, but every once and a while she sneaks into one of their beds to sleep.

Eventually they all convert to one bed with Parker in the middle.

.

The asset is complied of years of contained rage and harbored bitterness. Its mind a twisted and gory minefield gleaming crimson red. 

But this, they all have to remind themselves more and more, isn't the asset. It’s Parker. 

It's Parker who tears apart agents as if they are nothing more than paper. It's Parker who smiles as she slaughters their targets. It’s Parker whose screams they hear at night and who’s always the first one up in the mornings and last one up at night. 

It's Parker who grabs onto Hardison and Eliot, when the nights get too dark and memories come flooding back, and cries and cries until the tears finally run dry.  
.

“We found you,” comments Eliot one day, Hardison leaning against his shoulder, Parker sleeping in his lap. His voice rough and gaze determined, “You’re ours and we’re never letting you go.”

“Never.” agrees Hardison staring intently at the sleeping woman before them, “Never again, girl.”

Parker says nothing in response, only breathes and, for the first time in what feels like years, dreams.


	2. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter is coming, she thinks, but no one expects winter to take the form of a woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had an idea for a continuation of this really since i posted it, and the other day i finally wrote it. I'm really unsure on the structuring of this chapter, but i still think it works well. I really hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think! I may do more after this but we shall see. 
> 
> I own nothing, please enjoy:).

She dreams in memories and faded breaths. Its everything she’s wanted really, thought of and plead for for as long as she can remember, and she has no right to complain except–

Except they aren’t the memories she wishes to recall.

. 

She buries the memories as deep as she can; she knows they cannot be forgotten and so she buries, hides the thoughts away for as long as they will stay gone. 

She buries her memories beneath layers of snow, incases them in ice, and locks the door allowing herself to think nothing more of them. 

She seals her lips with thousands of scalding locks and prevents herself from ever muttering the word winter. 

.

Eliot talks to her about it sometimes. 

She doesn't quite get why. 

They have, had apparently - tense get tricky sometimes now, especially in English - an agreement. She doesn’t mention his times and he doesn’t touch hers.

The memories should remain untouched, left to rot in the darkest places of her mind. The years – no, months, she reminds herself quickly, the months should remain locked away. It was only that the months felt like years, like eternity after eternity passing before her eyes, speeding past her body and leaving her to her own silent mental pleas of wait. The inconsistencies of her body, frozen and thawed at odd intervals on repeat, made it impossible to track the time. Though of course that was the idea. For a while she had broken, thinking herself dead and everyone she ever had a chance of remembering gone, and she had complied. 

Compliance was, after all, the sought after goal.

She strongly prefers it when Eliot leaves her memories of the months alone. Usually he says nothing to her, in fear that he’ll scare her away. He thinks of her like a rabbit sometimes, scared and skittish, and it’s his fault really for underestimating her, for seeing a rabbit where a wolf resides. 

He should expect that when he says, “Peirce.” offhandedly in the midst of their usual afternoon television time that she turns to him and counters flawlessly with, “Moreau.” bearing her teeth through a smile, a challenge lighting in her eyes as the room around them freezes. He mistook her claws for paws and she does not intend to let him make the same mistake twice. Her teeth are razors and her body a weapon; he of all people should know this.

He stares at her for a moment longer before shaking his head and returning his focus to the Television. The tension is still palpable when she turns back to the television sliding further onto the couch and into Alec’s side. Alec waste no time placing an arm around her shoulders and even takes a moment to gently kiss her on the forehead, not once removing his eyes from the television. She preens under the attention, turning her head slightly she smiles savagely over at Eliot, and finds him rolling his eyes.

Nate and Sophie release a relived breath simultaneously from behind them; though continue to dwell inside of their makeshift refuge in the kitchen. 

.

"Winter is coming." the dazed man before her mumbles, his tongue getting in the way of itself. He’s trembling, wide eyes the same color as his graying hair, rips up his suit and pants. His breath is visible, making itself apparent in the form of a frozen cloud.

She laughs for a moment, startling the frantic man further by the sheer volume of her cackle. Her laugh still echoes around them when she strikes.

.

She catches Eliot staring at her, and not in the way he had when she first returned home and they all three would huddle together on the couch. No, it’s like he’s observing, waiting for something none of them are expecting. Parker’s really getting sick of it.

He’ll stare at her and Alec as they play video games together or watch a movie; he watches as they plot the heist together and only occasionally gives input. 

One time Alec notices and calls him out on it, “Man what is wrong with you? Get your head in the game.” He says, punctuating the quote with an imitation of dribbling and shooting an imaginary basketball, ending the shot with a whistel. Eliot growls because it’s the only correct response he knows to a high school musical reference, but then he shakes his head relenting and says, “nah I’m fine, just tired.”

“Tired,” Parker repeats, watching as Eliot’s eyes snap up to meet hers, “yeah me too.” 

She even exaggerates a yawn to prove it, stretching her arms above her head and behind her back, relishing in the pleasure she gets as her spine cracks. “Eliot and I will go get coffee for everyone.” She says, raising her eyebrow at him in challenge, awaiting his contradiction.

“Coffee sounds great.” Eliot responds, raising an eyebrow of his own, subconsciously entering them both in an eyebrow raising competition. 

“Alrighttt,” cuts in a faintly amused Hardison, “Bring me back something sugary.”

She pecks Alec’s cheek and smiles, winking at him slyly before she turns to leave.

.

There’s blood in her teeth. It’s all over her really, scarlet cascading down her body as well as through it, clashing bloody red with snow white. She bares her teeth at the remains of the corpse in the snow below her, making a show of licking the remnants of blood off of her lips. It tastes like iron, like the first punch thrown, and the first sword drawn in battle, the wining weapon of war. She wipes the rest off with her hand, not caring for the path the taste takes her down. Not now anyway, not here in an open snow.

She buries the body beneath the frozen white blanket, taking care to collect all the man’s belongings and cover all the red.

Winter is coming, she thinks, but no one expects winter to take the form of a woman.

.

The coffee shop they chose is about ten miles from the Brew Pub. She orders their coffee and shoves Eliot into a dimly lit corner booth, sliding in across from him. 

She hands him his coffee and with a hushed thanks he begins to drink it.

“You have two minutes,” she says, her voice cold and detached, “You have two minutes to talk about it and then we will not mention it again. Starting now.” 

Eliot nods and glances at the table for a moment, the dim light hitting his face and revealing his closed eyes. 

"It wasn't you." Eliot says, hand grasping the coffee cup before him tight enough that his fingers turn white around the edges, "it wasn't you who did those things."

She only stares at him, at his tired eyes and worn expression. She knows nothing of the nights she's cost him and Alec: nothing of the trials and worries that plagued their minds daily. She knows little of their newfound peace. 

"No," She agrees, watching as his tense shoulders fall. She doesn’t intend to burden them, but she remembers the box she keeps locked away, the thoughts she tried to forget and the moves she made. Sometimes she wonders how much of that was the machine and how much of it was actually her, how much did she actually like the taste of blood, the sound of skin ripping, of throats tearing. What if she liked it too much, “but I still did them."

.

The door shakes, and shivers.

It cracks, pieces falling and it–

No it– 

shatters.

.

The flood comes and–

It’s like drowning all over again.

.

Winter is ice and fear: the time where primal thoughts and instinctual reactions are expected and in some cases encouraged. It’s a primitive fight for survival and she came out on top.

Winter has no mercy to give, no peace to make; winter is itself and everything else is merely interference. Snow does not stop to comfort the wounded it buries; ice does not watch where it falls nor where it lands, and the yet to be frozen waters never erase all of the blood.

Winter is resisting the submergence, the patient conquest, of the reddened snow.

She stands among the remnants of frozen shards, blonde hair blowing into her eyes, frost threatening to overtake her throat, and breathes in ice and copper.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and Kudos are much appreciated. I'm on tumblr as rhymesofblue if you want to chat about this fic, offer a prompt, or just talk about fandoms and heartbreaking headcanons!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed, comments and kudos are much appriciated:)!  
> If you have questions you can come over to my tumblr rhymesofblue and ask!


End file.
